1. Field of the Described Embodiments
The present disclosure relates generally to gaming machines, and more particularly to gaming machines configured to allow players to request and download games dynamically to the gaming machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many of today's gaming casinos and other entertainment locations feature different single and multi-player gaming machines such as slot machines and video poker machines. The gaming machines may include a number of hardware and software components to provide a wide variety of game types and game playing capabilities. Exemplary hardware components may include bill validators, coin acceptors, card readers, keypads, buttons, levers, touch screens, coin hoppers, ticket printers, player tracking units and the like. Software components may include, for example, boot and initialization routines, various game play programs and subroutines, credit and payout routines, image and audio generation programs, various component modules and a random or pseudo-random number generator, among others.
Gaming machines are highly regulated to ensure fairness. In many cases, gaming machines may be operable to dispense monetary awards of a large amount of money. Accordingly, access to gaming machines is often carefully controlled. For example, in some jurisdictions, routine maintenance requires that extra personnel (e.g., gaming control personnel) be notified in advance and be in attendance during such maintenance. Additionally, gaming machines may have hardware and software architectures that differ significantly from those of general-purpose computers (PCs), even though both gaming machines and PCs employ microprocessors to control a variety of devices. For example, gaming machines may have more stringent security requirements and fault tolerance requirements. Additionally, gaming machines generally operate in harsher environments as compared with PCs.